Some facts about aging:

Growing old is very individual process and universal too. Aging does not occur in the same way in every human being. As the years go by, nearly all the layers of the skin, the dermis, the epidermis and the hypodermis are affected by the aging process. Other facts about skin:

• If the skin were stretched out in a tent like fashion our skin would cover an area of 20 sq. feet.
• It takes about 200,000 frowns to produce one permanent brown line.
• The cells in the layer of the skin called dermis make the protein collagen which strengthens the skin by forming cross linkages with each other.
• The epidermis is a tissue which has cells producing protein called ‘Keratin’ which keeps the skin from water logging (Keratin is the material of which the finger nails are made). The Epidermis also produces another protein named ‘elastin’ which gives elasticity to the skin after extension and contraction.
• There are over 3 million sweat glands useful in regulating body temperature all over in the layers.

Hair:

• Hair is produced in skin’s hair follicles. There are about 5 million follicles in adult human, about 5 million sequestered in the scalp.
• Human hair is not alive, and is therefore not capable of growing. The cell called germ centers are nourished by their own blood vessels inside the follicle and are responsible for development.
• A typical hair in a single follicle grown half an inch a month.
• The hair producing cell in follicle produces melanin which gives particular color to hair. If the cell quits functioning altogether, the hair growth will be white.
• The average human adult, for example, loses between 70 and 100 hair per day, whether you are a male or a female.
• During younger years, the replacement rate exceeds or is equal to the rate of loss.
• As we experience the aging process, the clock of age commands the germ centres in some follicles to shut down due to which no hair protein ‘melanin’ is made, hence the hair loss.

Bones:

• The first kind of cells called Osteoclasts generally tear down (de-materialize) solid bone material.
• The other cells called Osteoblasts do the opposite. They gather and apply new bone material in our skeleton.

The amount of inorganic material upon which these cells work in best seen in products of cremation. The organic components and the water are destroyed or evaporated in the first hour and what remains is calcium, lead, zinc and potassium in the form of white ash.